With the MSH fellowship, I conducted fieldwork in Brazil as part of my doctoral dissertation project in anthropology. For my PhD project, I conducted ethnographic research in a coral conservation laboratory at a public university in Porto Alegre, Brazil. As the main methodology in sociocultural anthropology, my ethnography included interviews, participant observation, and fieldwork notes. The laboratory I am researching is implementing a pioneering project on cryopreservation and in vitro reproduction for Brazilian endemic corals. The project’s goal is to store coral gametes in extreme low temperature (-371F) in liquid nitrogen. The technique allows scientists to preserve intact the gametes for future in vitro reproduction in the laboratory.
As the climate crisis advances, coral reefs have been particularly affected. The increase in temperature and acidification of the waters makes it difficult for the limestone skeletons of corals to form. It also causes symbiotic algae to be expelled, making feeding for these animals almost impossible. Coral reefs are fundamental for marine reproduction, and it is estimated that 25% of marine life depends on these environments for reproduction, food, and shelter. Scientists worldwide are trying to create biobanks for coral gametes to cryopreserve them, with the hope of reproducing corals while maintaining genetic diversity, both across species and within the same species.
Within the field of coral science, Brazilian scientists and corals are sidelined in international publications and conferences. Even though the country holds the only coral reefs in the South Atlantic Ocean, Brazilian scientists recounted, in our interviews, how they felt marginalized in journal publications and international spaces such as conferences. By following the laboratory routine, I learned about their expectations, the setbacks, and hopes that arise during a research project. Departing from this initial contact with the Brazilian laboratory, my research shifted focus from science produced in the USA—I conducted my first PhD summer fieldwork at a laboratory in California—to its production in Brazil. My questions would now be shaped by the reality of the South American country. In conversation with Science and Technology Studies, I ask: what challenges do researchers face in implementing a cryopreservation system? What kinds of alliances are made within and outside the scientific community to move this project forward in Brazil? Most importantly, my research aims to understand how national ideas about development, science, and nature intertwine in laboratory practice and how scientists envision the impact of their work in Brazilian coral reefs.
After my fieldwork with coral scientists in Porto Alegre, I traveled to Rio de Janeiro to attend the Latin American and Caribbean Society for Environmental History Conference (SOLCHA). As an anthropologist, attending different talks on the environmental history of Brazil helped me refine the questions my fieldwork experience raised. My experience culminated in participating in the Fiocruz-JHU Winter School, also in Rio de Janeiro, alongside graduate students and professors from both universities. Over two intensive weeks, I attended classes on the history of science and public health at the Fiocruz campus and collaborated on a collective project on central topics in both fields.
The experience provided by the MSH Fellowship was essential to consolidating my PhD project. In addition, it allowed me to contact scholars in the fields of environmental history, public health, and the history of science, strengthening my training as an anthropologist and expanding my theoretical framework.
